The nature of prose narrative in Northern Sotho: from orality to literacy

Abstract

The basic aim of this study is to investigate the nature of the narrative, concerning itself with the structures inherent in a system of signs which reveals the communicative function of literature. The general aim is to interpret the meaning of the narrative against the cultural background. The study makes a synthesis of formalist and structuralist points of view on the relations between story and discourse. A comparison of the oral and written narratives reveals that the discourse of the latter displays more artistry than that of the former. An examjnation of the problems of theme selection and development in the Northern Sotho prose narrative, from the point of view of African literature, is made. This reveals that the South African censorship laws have caused the emergence of sophisticated writers with a highly developed artistic way of portraying the South African situation sensitively by making it speak for itself. The study also examines some aspects of character in the narrative, analyzing the actions of characters in the story rather than psychological essences about them, and showing how these characters help the reader to understand the narrator's moral vision of the world. A comparison of the narrative techniques in the oral and the written narrative shows that in the former, the narrator is limited by tradition to the actions and the events that can be seen or heard, while the narrator in the latter can even describe what his characters are thinking or feeling. The study finally examines the relationship between symbolism and culture in the Northern Sotho narrative to reveal the general African philosophy in which -life is perceived as a perpetual journey undertaken by the hero from the natural to the non-natural world, whence he returns to the original world after experiencing moral lassitude and frustration. In the conclusion it is observed that both the oral and the written narratives deal with the intricacies of life as series of patterns and developments. The functional nature of the traditional African aesthetics reflected in the narratives prescribes the study of their meaning against the African cultural background.